COBS News archive

CometWatch February – part 1
February 23, 2016
This month, Rosetta is approaching Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at 40 km or less, returning beautiful views of the nucleus and its surface features. In today's CometWatch image, we see the comet pictured by Rosetta's NAVCAM on 10 February 2016, when the spacecraft was 50.6 km from the comet nucleus.

Rosetta’s lander faces eternal hibernation
February 15, 2016
Silent since its last call to mothership Rosetta seven months ago, the Philae lander is facing conditions on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko from which it is unlikely to recover. Rosetta, which continues its scientific investigations at the comet until September before its own comet-landing finale, has in recent months been balancing science observations with flying dedicated trajectories optimised to listen out for Philae. But the lander has remained silent since 9 July 2015.

CometWatch – 5 February
February 15, 2016
Today's CometWatch is an image taken with Rosetta's NAVCAM on 5 February 2016, when the spacecraft was 53.4 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. At these closer distances the comet is now close to filling the camera’s field of view.

Inside Rosetta’s comet
February 06, 2016
There are no large caverns inside Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. ESA’s Rosetta mission has made measurements that clearly demonstrate this, solving a long-standing mystery.

CometWatch 28 January
February 06, 2016
Today's CometWatch is an image taken with Rosetta's NAVCAM on 28 January 2016, when the spacecraft was 67.6 km from the comet nucleus.

CometWatch – January Part 2
January 31, 2016
In this new NAVCAM view, taken 21 January, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s small lobe and its distinctive Hatmehit depression face directly towards Rosetta.

Twin tails
January 31, 2016
Amateur and professional astronomers alike have been monitoring changes in Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s tail, which, since December, has been exhibiting two prominent structures.

CometWatch 17 January
January 31, 2016
Today's CometWatch features a NAVCAM image taken on 17 January 2016, when Rosetta was 83.4 km from the comet nucleus. The scale is 7.1 m/pixel and the image measures 7.3 km across.

CometWatch – January Part 1
January 21, 2016
Since the start of the 2016 we have been treated to a variety of views of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Rosetta’s OSIRIS wide- and narrow-angle cameras through their “Image of the Day” website.

CometWatch 18-19 December
January 11, 2016
Today's CometWatch entry is a double feature, showing two NAVCAM images taken about twelve hours apart, on 18 and 19 December 2015, when Rosetta was around one hundred km from the comet nucleus.

CometWatch 7 December 2015
December 14, 2015
Today's CometWatch entry is a NAVCAM image taken on 7 December 2015, when Rosetta was 103.1 km from the comet nucleus.

Ride along with Rosetta through the eyes of OSIRIS
December 14, 2015
Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera team has launched a new website to showcase their recent images of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Comet fragments best explanation of mysterious dimming star
December 04, 2015
Astronomers have responded to the buzz about a mysterious dimming star by studying data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. They conclude the dimming was probably caused by a family of comets passing in front of the star.

Cometwatch 27 November
December 04, 2015
This week’s Cometwatch entry was taken by Rosetta’s NAVCAM on 27 November 2015 when the spacecraft was 124 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

CometWatch 17 November 2015
November 20, 2015
Today's CometWatch entry is a NAVCAM image taken on 17 November 2015, when Rosetta was 141.4 km from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The spacecraft has not been this close to the nucleus since weeks before perihelion, when the increased amounts of dust due to enhanced comet activity started interfering with navigation and Rosetta remained at larger distances from 67P/C-G.

From one comet landing to another: planning Rosetta’s grand finale
November 17, 2015
As announced in June along with confirmation of the mission’s extension, Rosetta teams are planning to end the operational phase of the mission in a controlled impact of the orbiter on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at the end of September 2016. While the specific details of the trajectories and impact site are still under discussion, ESA’s Rosetta Spacecraft Operations Manager Sylvain Lodiot, Project Scientist Matt Taylor, and mission manager Patrick Martin, share some background information on the planning of this dramatic mission finale.

New Comet: C/2015 V2 (JOHNSON)
November 17, 2015
CBET nr. 4161, issued on 2015, November 05, announces the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~17.1) by J. A. Johnson on CCD images obtained with the Catalina Sky Survey's 0.68-m Schmidt telescope on Nov. 3.5 UT. The new comet has been designated C/2015 V2 (JOHNSON).

CometWatch 12 November – one year on
November 14, 2015
Today’s CometWatch entry was taken yesterday by Rosetta’s NAVCAM, on the anniversary of Philae’s historic landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko last year. The image was taken from a distance of 177.7 km; the image scale is 15.1 m/pixel and the image measures 15.5 km across. It has been lightly enhanced to better show the comet’s activity.

CometWatch from Gaia
November 05, 2015
On 14 September 2015, Comet 67P/Churyumov Gerasimenko was imaged by Gaia, ESA's billion star surveyor.

First detection of molecular oxygen at a comet
October 31, 2015
ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has made the first in situ detection of oxygen molecules outgassing from a comet, a surprising observation that suggests they were incorporated into the comet during its formation. This news story is mirrored from the main ESA web portal.